Contact Our Founder: Fred Mednick

I foundedTeachers Without Borders (TWB) in 2000 to connect teacher leaders to information and each other, in order to make lasting change. Today, TWB members represent 171 countries. Social networks are flourishing. TWB, however, is also a local action organization — on a global scale.

Biography

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A few months after Fred Mednick received his doctorate in 1999 (while serving as a high-school principal), he fired myself and founded Teachers Without Borders, a non-profit devoted to connecting the world’s teachers to information and each other.

Fred’s research and personal commitment center around the connection between teacher professional development and global development. Having witnessed teacher leaders making extraordinary change in their communities, he demonstrates how brains are evenly distributed; mobilized, those brains are a virtuous cycle and a national resource. “We can show how a country is only as vital and sustainable as its teachers,” he says often. “Even more,” he claims, “that vitality and sustainability has taken new forms, especially because the lines between the local and global have blurred. A teacher is not only a community leader, but must educate for global citizenship and participation.”

All Teachers Without Borders programs are conceived and led by teacher leaders. Programs are designed to be adaptable, adoptable, affordable, and accessible so that local leaders can ensure relevance for the communities they serve. This distinguishing characteristic and focus on local capacity earned TWB the prestigious “Champion of African Education Award” from the W.F. Hewlett Foundation and Ashoka, the social entrepreneurship network.

Fred was an early creator and adopter of open educational resources and online learning platforms. As an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University, I launched public online courses for teachers in global education, girls’ education, peace and human rights, education in emergencies, and technology. He connected Hopkins doctoral students to non-governmental organizations focusing on girls’ education, resulting in his successful MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in Girls’ Education - launching again in April, 2016.

Fred has advised foundations, corporations, and global agencies on teacher development. He has advised The Organization of American States, the oldest regional association in the world, on policies and programs emphasizing the transformation of teacher education, and wrote the research backgrounder for the latest Ministers of Education meetings in Latin America and the Caribbean. For the past year and a half, he also coordinates academic programs for the International Institute for Educational Development, a consortium of global universities working with Ministries of Education to develop new models and degrees for teachers.Among his many distinct contributions to global education,

At over 59 million, teachers are the largest professionally trained group in the world. They know who is sick or missing or orphaned by AIDS. Though a mountain of research affirms that teachers key to any community’s development, teacher professional development – worldwide – is tragically more often than not spotty, inconsequential, or missing entirely. They’re more bumper stickers – they’re action figures!

Led consultations for Director of Education and Human Development at The Organization of American States on teacher professional development throughout Latin America and the Caribbean

As Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Education, developed online professional development for Continuing Education Units and created program for Hopkins online EdD students to collaborate on joint research directly with NGOs facing challenges in girls’ education

Conceived and currently lead an academic program for a B.A. degree in ICTs in Education for pre-service and in-service teachers in Suriname, in partnership with the Advanced Teachers’ College

Created NGO programs designed to build local capacity, enhance community ownership and educational leadership and cultural inclusion, and ensure rapid feedback systems designed for the reporting of impacts, transparency, and local adoption.

Research and Selected Publications

RESEARCH INTERESTS

The impact of global teacher professional development programs on global development initiatives

The role of teachers in accelerating disaster risk mitigation, with particular attention to the connection between inquiry science, safety, and community development in natural and national disasters

Impacts of crowd-sourced community participation in educational evaluation, with particular attention to teacher education in developing countries

The measurement, sustainability, and scale of professional development for Ministers of Education

Mednick, F. (2014). “Inequality and Social Inclusion in the Americas: Working to create educational opportunities for all.” (chapter). In “Inequality and social inclusion in the Americas: 13 essays. Organization of American States, Secretary General. Washington, DC. On behalf of Mrs. Marie Levens, Director of Department of Education and Human Development (OAS). pp. 173-195.

2013-2014: Johns Hopkins University School of Education. Development of three courses: IntroductiontoGlobal UrbanEducation; Educating Girls; and ASAP – Education in Emergencies. Topics: global comparative analysis of PISA and TIMSS; issues in education and development; global education for (and within) classrooms; girls’ education (connecting students with non-governmental organizations working on issues of access and public health); disaster prevention and planning, particularly intervention in acute and chronic crises and educational reconstruction following a natural disaster or civil unrest

2011-2013: Organization of American States and Cisco Networking Academies. ICT for Development, Mexico, Brazil, Suriname, and Haiti: Target audience: classroom teachers seeking to integrate ICT into courses and measure achievement